Alex Mentzel
- PhD student
- Associate, Cambridge Digital Humanities
- Gates Cambridge Social
Contact
About
Supervisor: Prof. Andrew Webber
Alex Mentzel is a second year PhD student as a Gates Cambridge Scholar. He first arrived at the University of Cambridge in 2021 from the Pacific Northwest after several years working in the creative industries, as well as a stint as the co-founder and CEO of Averto, a social-impact tech start-up. During his MPhil in European, Latin American, and Comparative Literature and Culture he integrated a computational analysis of machines in the short stories of Franz Kafka with media archeology and critical theory, ultimately receiving a Distinction.
Previously, Alex co-developed and managed a COVID-19 integrated software platform for Lane County Public Health and the Oregon Health Authority, researched global ethics and human rights at Oxford and with the United Nations in New York City, served as the Assistant Director on a theatrically-staged spacewalk through the universe in "All in All" at Frankfurt's Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, and even worked as a professional actor in Los Angeles.
Alex grew up in Cologne, Germany and Eugene, Oregon and graduated from the University of Oregon Clark Honors College with degrees in German Literature and Culture and Theatre Arts.
Scholarships/Prizes:
Gates-Cambridge Scholarship, 2022
Full PhD funding through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Cambridge Trust Masters Studentship & Schröders plc Fund Scholarship, 2021
Awarded for significant academic achievement and potential
Robert D. Clark International Thesis Award, 2020
Recognizes a distinguished thesis that involved significant research abroad or in second-language sources
Student Startup Madness and SXSW Festival—National Final 8, 2020
Awarded to Averto as one of the Top 8 student led tech start-ups in the nation
Seattle Startup Week/TechCrunch “Best Start-Up” Winner, 2019
German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Research Fellowship, 2017
Full 6-month funding period
Research
Alex works on the spatial principles and architectures of online ecosystems and emergent technology. His PhD creates a Virtual Topography of the “digital space” by engaging with the spatial theories of Walter Benjamin and Siegfried Kracauer, as they exist in conversation with the performative qualities examined by Bertolt Brecht and Franz Kafka in their literature. My PhD project will provide critical “encrustations” (after Caroline Bassett), transcending existing readings that fall back on simple description of virtual spaces and portals.
Alex is deeply committed to work that addresses the risk of negative technological consequences, such as discriminatory systems of surveillance, data extraction, and privacy breaches, that will be amplified in emergent cross-reality environments. As commercial pillars of Web2, notably Meta and Microsoft, make increasing use of Web3 technologies, questions of racial, gender, and economic experience as articulated in virtual space will be profoundly political. He believes it is his role to not merely reflect the present but provide alternative imaginaries of the future. His research melds theoretical methodology with continued work in artistic production and technological development, resulting in contributions to the ways that our society must face these globally networked challenges.
Recent research projects:
--Upcoming: “Walter Benjamin, Media Archaeology, and Digital Scenography” at the Friedrich Schlegel Graduiertenschule, Freie Universität Berlin (Summer Semester, 2024)
--Faust Shop Performance: An Augmented Reality theatrical exploration of the tokenization and financialization of data through Goethe’s Faust, in partnership with Cambridge Digital Humanities and Sook - https://www.faust-shop.org/
--"Using AI to give industrial robots a sense of feeling”, in partnership with Cambridge i-Teams, Cambridge Enterprise, and Cambridge Institute for Manufacturing - https://iteamsonline.org/
--“Ed: The New, Totally Unofficial, Ginger-Inclusive Parody Sketch Show” at Edinburgh Fringe Festival -- https://www.comedy.co.uk/fringe/2023/ed-parody-sketch-show/
-- “Digital Solutions and Improving Contact Tracing and Public Health Outcomes” (Operations and Development Researcher) - https://around.uoregon.edu/corona-corps